Written by Sam Fisher -
Pasture to Fork is a farm located on the very western edge of beautiful Chester Couty, in the small town of Honey Brook, PA. The farm was founded by the Fisher family and has been in operation since 2012. Having grown up in a family cabinetry business here in Honey Brook, I, (Sam, the husband and father), secretly nursed a dream to farm. Esther (the wife and mother) was raised near Lancaster, PA on a conventional dairy and tobacco farm.
Health Challenges and a Dream –
Esther and I both experienced health challenges growing up. From allergies to constant colds to being constantly underweight, I was always the sick kid and had a lot of school absences due to sickness. While my parents tried many different things to improve my health, we ate the standard (SAD) American diet, and rarely or never made the connection between health and the food we ate. Esther also lacked vibrant health to a degree, involving PMS, acne, constipation, and the like. Her family, like mine, ate the SAD diet and rarely paid attention to their health, or to the early indications of inflammation.
By the time I was in my teens, being number six of seven children, my parents came to the realization that too many of their children suffered from chronic health conditions. Though none were to the extent that mine was, several of my siblings had health challenges. In an attempt to help their [mostly] adult children, my parents, to their credit, went on a quest for answers. Dad, always an avid reader and being relatively open minded, learned about the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), and purchased Sally Fallon’s book, Nourishing Traditions. I still have fond memories of my lunatic Dad reading aloud from that book around the dinner table in the early 2000’s. He, always hyped up about some new venture or information, made the most of this new discovery and subscribed to an eco-farming publication called Acres USA, and purchased several books pertaining to food and farming.
Fast forward a few years, Esther and I were married, and she shared my dream of farming as well as had become number advocate to improve my still-less-than-optimal health. When we had the opportunity to move to this tract of land in 2008 (the farm was an investment Dad made in 1999, having done well in the family cabinetry business) we were excited, but still had no real intention or vision of farming as a career. The farm—about 30 acres—was rented to a local grain farmer, I worked in construction (after following a doctors advise to leave the paint fumes and wood dust cabinet shop environment), and we were distinctly aware of the nearly insurmountable capital costs of starting a conventional commodity-based farm.
In those years Esther and I developed a desire to somehow set the stage for better health for our young family. We took what we learned from my parents—along with information from WAPF and other sources—and sought to grow more of our own food in order to gain control over what we and our children ate.
A Vision Developed, and a Hobby Endeavor –
In 2009, we had the opportunity to take over the family cow Dad had purchased following his discovery of the WAPF and milked the cow—by hand—as a hobby and family milk source. Milking this cow—soon to be cows—was my first taste of any type of farming venture outside of the few animals we had growing up. I loved it, and that love led me to books such as Joel Salatin’s You Can Farm, as well as some of the books and publication Dad had purchased several years earlier when he first found WAPF. Having inherited the “reader gene”, I quickly caught a vision for a sort of alternative farming venture based on low-capital startup, direct-to-consumer sales, and Joel-Salatin-style perennial pasture-based animal agriculture. The book, You Can Farm, really became a realistic concept to me.
By 2012 we were milking 4-5 cows, making raw butter and other dairy products, purchased our first chickens (both laying hens and meat birds), and had a small group of customers sent to us by our neighbors at King’s Herb Nook (certainly allies in our journey). Our fledgling venture was far from a full-time going concern, but at least we had a vision and a small-but-growing following.
Pasture to Fork Today –
The shoestring venture grew steadily over the course of the next several years—primarily by word of mouth, until we were finally well enough established and had the wherewithal to have a professional website built in January 2020, which really put us on the map just prior to Covid. Which, in turn, brought regulatory agencies to our door in early 2021 asking for all sorts of licenses (right-to-oversight contracts), inspections and the like. Fortunately we were able to navigate that hurdle—with help from advisors, and are here to serve today. We’re still a small farm by all agricultural metrics, are a family business where our children (ages 3 to 16) are heavily involved in producing the foods we raise, and we hope to continue to bring opportunities for our family, and beyond, as we grow.
As of 2024 we serve via our on-farm store in Honey Brook, PA, plus a growing number of pickup locations (bi-weekly delivery) in southeastern PA, and UPS shipping to most of the eastern half of the United States. We continue to round out our original vision and venture to include foods from other local artisan producers in order offer a wider variety beyond what we can raise.
I’ll be the first to admit that while we’re not perfect, we have come a long way as a family and a farm. And that feels good. Plus, it’s a great feeling to know that we’re building soil, cleansing the atmosphere, promoting human and animal health, and furthering food literacy. It continues to be an uphill climb—a continuing battle to take back our soils and our health—but at least we have a sustaining vision to work towards and are not merely puppets of Big Food, conventional agri-business, academia, and Big Pharma. Our goal is to continue perfecting our vision, improving our services, and bringing health, hope, and healing to our family, the soils in our care, and the patrons of our farm. We welcome you to join us in our endeavors!